Simultaneous effect of disabling conditions on primary health care use through a capability approach

Clémence Bussière (), Jonathan Sicsic and Nathalie Pelletier-Fleury

Social Science & Medicine, 2016, vol. 154, issue C, 70-84

Abstract: There is evidence of social disparities in the use of primary health services in most European countries, and these disparities particularly affect people with disabilities. Many determinants of disabilities interact to limit access to health care (e.g. impairments, functional limitations, educational level). However, these determinants have typically been examined separately. We adopted a capabilities perspective to define multidimensional disability. Capabilities refer to individuals' real opportunities to achieve possible outcomes. In this context, we aimed to assess disability through latent capabilities (shaped by personal, social and environmental variables) and to simultaneously analyze their effects on primary health care use (GP and nurse care; cervical, breast, and colorectal cancer screenings). We used a structural equation modeling framework, which allowed complete and simultaneous tests of relationships taking into account measurement errors. The data source was the 2008 French Health and Disability Survey (29,931 individuals). Potential disability-related determinants were selected to measure five latent variables: health condition and cognitive, physical, societal, and socioeconomic capabilities. All things being equal, we did not identify any specific barriers to GP care use. We found a lower likelihood of nursing care use among people with lower cognitive capabilities. Unlike usual findings, we did not observe a significant influence of either cognitive or physical capabilities for any type of cancer screening use. However, cancer screening participation was mainly affected by societal and socioeconomic capabilities. Considering the capability approach, which suggests public action oriented toward restoring capabilities of individuals, future programs should seek to increase societal support to compensate for disability. This approach could be helpful in reducing inequalities in health care access.

Keywords: France; Primary care; Disability; Capability approach; Access to care; Health inequalities; Structural equation modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616300776
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:154:y:2016:i:c:p:70-84

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.02.022

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().